Fun with PhD thesis access

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Seventy-two years ago a nun submitted a PhD thesis to Boston College in the USA which contains an English translation of the Peristephanon of Prudentius.  The work was never published and is rare.  So I wrote to the college and asked for a copy.

My request was declined.  Apparently it might be in copyright.  Shock! Call the lawyers!  “Do you have permission to see this item, sir?” The librarian demands that I write to this now-deceased nun’s order and ask for permission, before she will make me a copy.  I’ve been chuckling about this all evening.

I mean… I have to ask the Pope (or his representative), before they will send a copy of a 72 year old thesis to a scholar to use for research purposes?  It’s pretty daft, isn’t it.  And if I can find someone with “authority” to allow me to look at this, I shall have to be careful how I ask, in case they wonder if I’m taking the mick. 

Ah, libraries…

Of course it may be that the environment in which the library has to work is more risky than I think.  UK television depicts Americans as people who go around either sueing each other or blowing each other’s heads off on a daily basis.  Obviously it must be true — the TV programmes are mostly made in the USA.    If so, no wonder the library is a bit gun-shy.  No wonder they want to waste my time, and that of the recipient, just in case. 

But I had not realised that gangs of nuns might be so much of a threat to them as that.  Rampaging gangs, equipped with semi-automatics and a hot-line to a law-firm; man, it’s dangerous out there in Boston.

I’ve written back and shifted the onus on them, by asking to whom I should write.  That will cost them something to find out, although not much.  Once this nonsense makes work for them, rather than just me, they may see sense.

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Documentary papyri and inscriptions online

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Did you know that images of the papyrus of the Gospel of Peter are online?  Well, they are, here.  Monochrome, of course (O ye uncircumcised!), but far better than nothing.  A photographic archive of other documentary papyri in the Cairo museum are here (courtesy of the Andrew Mellon foundation which is funding all sorts of wonderful things).

All this is at the Oxford Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents.  The links section, under “Online Corpora of Papyri and Inscriptions” has a  bunch of links to online access to things.  The list alone is worth looking at, if, like me, you had no idea these existed.

Somewhere there is a link to a database of Latin inscriptions called Clauss Slaby. It is just a fantastic resource and includes most of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum [CIL] and many  others.  Try entering ‘Mithra’ or ‘Mithrae’ in “Search text 1” and get a mass of dedicatory material. 

I also tried “Attin”, for Attis, and got more material still, at more length.  It’s not just inscriptions, but documentary material as well – letters, for instance.

The inscriptions are expanded, which makes it more useful yet.  Of course you do need to know a bit of Latin to get the most out of this!

Carefully hidden in a mass of irrelevant and annoying pages in German is a site which has a search tool for the big list of people from the Roman empire — the prosopography of the Roman empire — here.   Follow the Stichwortliste: Eingangsseite link.

Of course a lot of the links are to people who haven’t realised that websites are for putting stuff online; pompous institutes that just list their Dead-Tree Press publications, as if in some kind of dull brochure.  But a very encouraging number of the sites have content!

The CSAD site is for more than just inscription-sniffers.  It is of wide use to those of us wandering around trying to find out about Attis, or Mithras, or whoever.  These people are doing some really valuable work.  Recommended.

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Poem to a senator who has converted from Christianity to the servitude of idols

Posted on by Roger Pearse

There are quite a lot of scattered late Latin poems around, often attached to the works of Cyprian or Tertullian in manuscripts or early editions.  Some are interesting. This article discusses them, and I have a bunch on my Tertullian site under “spurious”. 

One of these is a poem of 85 lines here, which talks about a certain senator who has apostasised and become a devotee of the Magna Mater, Cybele.

I’ve just discovered that an English translation exists, unpublished:

THE “CARMEN AD QUENDAM SENATOREM”: DATE, MILIEU, AND TRADITION by BEGLEY, RONALD BRUCE Ph.D., The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1984, 303 pages; AAT 8415790

I hope someone will get hold of it from the UMI database so I can take a look at it.  It contains interesting details about Cybele, I believe.

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The Taurobolium

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The high priest who is to be consecrated is brought down under ground in a pit dug deep, marvellously adorned with a fillet, binding his festive temples with chaplets, his hair combed back under a golden crown, and wearing a silken toga caught up with Gabine girding.

Over this they make a wooden floor with wide spaces, woven of planks with an open mesh; they then divide or bore the area and repeatedly pierce the wood with a pointed tool that it may appear full of small holes.

Hither a huge bull, fierce and shaggy in appearance, is led, bound with flowery garlands about its flanks, and with its horns sheathed; Yea, the forehead of the victim sparkles with gold, and the flash of metal plates colours its hair.

Here, as is ordained, the beast is to be slain, and they pierce its breast with a sacred spear; the gaping wound emits a wave of hot blood, and the smoking river flows into the woven structure beneath it and surges wide.

Then by the many paths of the thousand openings in the lattice the falling shower rains down a foul dew, which the priest buried within catches, putting his shameful head under all the drops, defiled both in his clothing and in all his body.

Yea, he throws back his face, he puts his cheeks in the way of the blood, he puts under it his ears and lips, he interposes his nostrils, he washes his very eyes with the fluid, nor does he even spare his throat but moistens his tongue, until he actually drinks the dark gore.

Afterwards, the flamens draw the corpse, stiffening now that the blood has gone forth, off the lattice, and the pontiff, horrible in appearance, comes forth, and shows his wet head, his beard heavy with blood, his dripping fillets and sodden garments.

This man, defiled with such contagions and foul with the gore of the recent sacrifice, all hail and worship1 at a distance, because profane blood 2 and a dead ox have washed him while concealed in a filthy cave.

Notes

1 All hail and worship. The consecrated priest, emerging from the blood bath with the gift of divine life (drawn from the sacred bull) himself becomes divine and is therefore worshipped. Those who received the ‘taurobolium could be described as ‘born again for eternity’ (renatus in aeternum, C.I.L., VI, 510; many other inscriptions refer to the taurobolium and prove the rite to have been in use early in the second century A.D).

2 Profane blood. It must be remembered that Prudentius was a Christian and that to him the blood was profane (vilis) and the whole rite not only repulsive but blasphemous.

(Prudentius, Peristephanon, Carmen X, 1011-50: Translation and notes by C. K. Barrett, The New Testament Background (London, SPCK 1956), pp. 96-7)

I don’t know whether an out-of-copyright English translation exists of the Peristephanon, but will look.

I’ve found a reference to “The Peristephanon of Prudentius: a translation and word study” by Sister Mary Ellen Field. Thesis (M.A.)–Boston College 1937.  This seems to be unpublished, unavailable through UMI… I’ll try writing to the college and asking for a copy!

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Abby Finereader 9 is really excellent

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve been scanning some stuff that I can’t really discuss in the evenings this week, but have been very, very impressed with the character recognition quality of Abby Finereader 9.  It is very nearly perfect, and such an improvement on previous OCR software.

The only thing that I wish it could handle is English translation with embedded accented characters — strange names like `Abu and words like šeikh (=sheikh).

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Did sacred prostitution exist in the classical world, or ancient near-east?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve no real idea, I have to say.  I’d always vaguely assumed so, and apparently scholars have always thought so.  But today I saw a BMCR review here by someone who thinks not, reviewing a book by an ally.  I’m a little wary of the ideology on display; the review makes it look a  bit agenda-driven.

But I wonder what the facts are. My instinctive reaction is to ask to see the evidence from primary sources.  The review tells me that Strabo says something or other about it at Corinth, in book 12.   Unfortunately the Lacus Curtius translation hasn’t got that far yet.  What we need is a data set online.  Then we can assess the matter for ourselves.

Thanks to Roman History Books blog for this one.

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Not that far up the Nile

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Reading of Jim West’s trip to Egypt reminded me that I was looking for somewhere to go just before Christmas, to fight off the winter blues.  I was thinking about flying out to Khartoum.  After all, the location is right for sunshine in December, and spending a week in a good hotel relaxing wouldn’t be very arduous.

I came across the Tripadvisor website, for “Sudan”.  This site is quite useful for hotel reviews, although for Luxor some of the hotel-keepers have started to game the system with fake reviews.  (You can tell, because they’re tiny places no-one has ever heard of!)  But the reviews for Sudan were enlightening.

You see, I reasoned that the rulers of Sudan, as in any third-world country, enjoy acquiring foreign aid.  Those Mercedes-Benzes cost hard currency, after all!  So they would need to have at least one good hotel for all the fat-cats to stay in, while being wined and dined, preparatory to handing over money exacted from poor people in rich countries to the rich people who keep poor countries poor (as the saying has it).  If so, I too could stay in it.

The results are pretty awful.  There is the al-Rotana, which seems the probable hotel that I had in mind, charging $200 a night.  But look at the rest!!?!

The best hotel is apparently run by Greeks, which will amuse those who have read the “River War” by Winston Churchill.  Churchill, who was going up the Nile with Kitchener against the dervishes, and indeed G. W. Steevens in his “With Kitchener to Khartoum”, makes regular mentions of Greek hoteliers as the only source of civilisation!  Perhaps the Sudan has slumped back into the state that it was in a century ago — the victim of 50 years of failed policies.

PS: I looked at the UK Foreign Office advice here.  The list of disease outbreaks was pretty interesting.  You know, I don’t really want to experience all that…

PPS: I’ve been laughing all evening about the hotel reviews, which were in order of preference.  Most countries list hotels by resort.  This one contains the only 14 hotels in the country.  The first one sounded rather dodgy.  The second was the corporate one I referred to.  But the review of third one started witha single word, doubtless written with a shudder of memory: “horrible”.    One can imagine the pale and desperate frame of mind of the ‘guest’ in which that was the first word that came to mind. What hotel number 14 was like I cannot imagine!

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Back to Agapius

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I know that various people are interested in the translation of Agapius, so they may be pleased to learn that I am still working on this.  In fact I did some more this afternoon.  What a pleasant change it was, after fighting with Firmicus Maternus. 

There must be something wrong with the text of the latter, I think.  Comparing my own effort to that of Clarence Forbes, the ACW translator, I noticed a distinct tendency to paraphrase at points.  He had to fight with the text to get some sense out of it at various points.

But I’ve ordered the French edition of Turcan, and with luck that will address some of the textual issues.  In the mean time, it is nice to work on a translation that doesn’t involve squeezing your mind or feel like chopping wood; where you can just translate like breathing.

Agapius has an interesting comment on the book of Ruth:

In year 5 of the same [=Samson], the story of Ruth the Moabite took place, i.e. originating from the tribe of Moab. Boaz married her and fathered by her Obed, grandfather of the prophet David. The story of Ruth contains 246 verses; her book is so beautiful, that it was translated from Greek into Arabic.

Agapius is one of the earliest Christian Arabic writers, so it seems that Ruth was translated earlier still.  Note that the translation was from the Septuagint.

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Blogging on the Nile

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Blogger Jim West is off to Egypt, it seems.  I hope we get to travel with him, vicariously.  Cairo should be nice at this time of year.  He’s also going on a Nile cruise, from Aswan to Luxor.  I’ve never been to Aswan myself — although I would like to.  I feel faintly envious.

In the mean time, here’s a shot of the west bank of the Nile at Luxor, taken from the Jollie Ville hotel in the evening. Somewhere in that mountain are the tombs of the kings.

The hills of Western Thebes

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Throw the photocopies away

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’m surrounded by photocopies; parts of books, articles, etc.  Filing cabinets, boxes of photocopier paper.  But really, they aren’t convenient.  I can’t carry them around with me.  I don’t look at them often.

Today I ordered a Fujitsu Scansnap S300 document reader.  It’s designed to take bunches of photocopies and turn them into PDF’s.  It’s not really a scanner, as I understand it — it has no TWAIN driver.  It’s portable, mobile, and can be powered from a USB port (although it works better from mains).

I think that I would be better off if my photocopies were in electronic form.  If I can turn the page images into PDF’s, then I can carry them around on a disk.  I can email them to myself, if I need to.  I can read them in the evenings in a hotel, access them at lunchtime in the office, and so on.  And I can get some floor-space back!

Once they’re in PDF form, I can run Abbyy Finereader 9 on them.  That will give a rough output, which will allow me to do electronic searches.  So I can have all the articles that I have, on a portable disk, and just search them when someone asks me a difficult question.

You know; do I really need to buy any more academic books?  After all, we don’t sit down and read them cover to cover, do we?  So… why have paper, if we can convert them to PDF easily and make them searchable in the process?

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